Developing an Infrastructure for Bereavement Outreach in a Maternal-Fetal Care Center

Developing an Infrastructure for Bereavement Outreach in a Maternal-Fetal Care Center

Cole J C M; Budney A; Howell L J; Moldenhauer J S

Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy

2020

Bereavement outreach; Birth defects; Congenital anomalies; Fetal care; Grief support; Maternal care; Parental grief; Perinatal loss

Although bereavement programs are a common element of palliative medicine and hospice programs, few maternal-fetal care centers offer universal bereavement outreach services following perinatal loss. In this article, we describe the implementation of a bereavement outreach program at the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The four primary goals identified when developing the bereavement outreach protocol included: (1) centralize communication for patient tracking when a perinatal loss occurs, (2) provide individualized and consistent resource support for grieving patients and families, (3) identify strategic outreach points throughout the first year post-loss, and (4) instate programmatic improvements in response to feedback from patients and their families. Strategies for establishing standardized follow-up protocols and operationalizing methods to address outreach initiatives will be shared, with the primary aim of providing other fetal care centers with a proposed model for perinatal bereavement outreach services.

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October 2020 List